


we're both too young to give into forever

by jadewest



Category: MindCrack RPF
Genre: 5 Times, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-27 02:59:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8384638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadewest/pseuds/jadewest
Summary: Five times Chad should say he loves him, and one time he does.





	

**Author's Note:**

> all mistakes are mine, respect the fourth wall, all that jazz. enjoy.  
> title from troye sivan's "lost boy".

Chad’s in Seattle for business, but he makes time for Matt, because of course he does. It’s mucky and depressing and he hates it.

“I don’t know how you can stand to live here,” Chad says, looking up at the sky. It’s starting to drizzle and he doesn’t have an umbrella, just Matt’s Twitch hoodie that he’s gotten in the habit of stealing when they’re together.

Matt tilts his head upwards and lets a few drops of rain hit his face and smiles at him. “I love the rain.”

“Gross,” Chad says bumping his elbow against Matt’s arm and Matt laughs and Chad kind of feels like he’s floating.

There’s a comfortable silence in the air as they walk down the street before Matt says – “Can I show you something?”

Chad shrugs as a yes and Matt beams at him. They make their way to Matt’s car, and Matt opens the door for Chad and Chad thinks it’s stupid but mostly sweet.

Matt drives them to an empty parking lot and turns off the car. Chad raises his eyebrow quizzically. “I thought you had something to show me.”

“Shhhh,” Matt says. He leans forward and rests his chin against the steering wheel. The rain starts to pick up and the only sound is the pitter patter of it hitting the top of the car and Matt’s quiet humming. They sit like that for a while – listening to the rain, occasionally stealing glances for a few seconds longer than maybe they should.

“It’s my favorite thing in the world,” Matt starts. The noise startles Chad and he looks over at Matt who is tracing designs with the dust on his dashboard. “Sitting in a car when it’s raining like this…” He trails off, and Chad doesn’t think he’s ever seen him so relaxed. Chad doesn’t say anything, just watches him appreciate the rain and he feels his chest get tight and his throat get dry because he’s choking on words he doesn’t think he’s ever said to anyone before.

Matt looks over at him for the first time in what feels like years. “I…usually like to do this by myself. It’s how I calm down,” he makes a face before continuing – “but I wanted to share it with you.” The emotional intimacy is too much for Chad to bear so he just smiles at him softly. Matt returns the smile before looking away and leaning his head against the window, watching raindrops slide down the side of the car.

It’s quiet again aside from the white noise of the rain. Chad idly wonders how long they’ve been here. “I guess we should get going.” Matt says, leaning forward to grab his keys off the dashboard.

“Matt-” Chad begins, and he looks over at him to meet his gaze and Chad feels like he can’t breathe. “Thank you. For sharing this with me.” He wants to say more but he can’t. The corners of Matt’s mouth tilt upwards and he starts the car without replying.

//

They’re at some convention somewhere, Chad is frankly too tired and drunk to remember, and Matt’s practically carrying him back to their room. It was supposed to be Matt’s room, but Chad ended up falling asleep there the first night and kept coming back.

Chad’s poking at his face and his lips are peppering sloppy kisses across Matt’s neck and jaw, and it makes Matt smile when he does it and he feels like he’s on cloud nine.

They finally make it back to their hotel room, somehow, and Matt kicks the door shut with his foot and guides Chad to his bed. Chad makes it incredibly difficult, running his fingers through Matt’s hair and tugging on his shirt and desperately trying to make any sort of physical contact possible.

Matt shrugs him off of his shoulder before leaning in to kiss him and Chad can feel his smile against his mouth and he’s so drunk and so fucking in love with him. Matt breaks them apart slightly and rests his forehead against Chad’s, bumping their noses together in the process. “I think you should get some sleep,” he mumbles.

“Don’t wanna sleep,” Chad slurs, “want to stay here with you, forever,” he continues. The words make Matt audibly gasp and he pulls away and Chad feels his heart sink.

“You’re drunk,” he warns, shaking his head. He wants to tell Matt he’d mean it regardless, but he doesn’t.

Instead, he goes for: “So are you.” Matt shoots him a look that means something like ‘not as drunk as you’ or ‘does it matter’.

Chad feels a mix of word vomit and actual vomit forming in his stomach. He ends up ‘choosing’ the actual vomit, as he runs off to the bathroom and hurls. He hears Matt chuckle bitterly and he hopes he doesn’t remember this tomorrow.

//

“I’m…moving.” Chad’s looking at his hands and he can feel Matt staring at him through the webcam. “To Texas,” he finishes.

“Oh.” It’s all Matt has to say and Chad wants to throw up. He wants him to stop him even though he knows he won’t. “Well, I wish you the best.” Matt sounds like he’s talking to an employee. Chad’s gnawing on his bottom lip so hard he’s pretty sure he won’t have one by the time they’re done talking.

He’s getting brave so he says: “that’s it, then?” And Matt’s eyes flicker with a hint of sadness before he locks his jaw and nods.

“I mean, I guess. I don’t know what you want me to say.” Chad hates him because he does know what Chad wants him to say. And Chad hates himself because he could say it just as easily but he won’t because he’s a stubborn jackass.

They’re both looking at each other, waiting. Waiting for one of them to take the plunge and admit what has been eating them alive for months. Chad’s throat is scratchy and his eyes are stinging. He can’t. He wants so badly to tell him everything – tell him that he’s kept him up at night, that he kept that stupid fucking purple otter because he couldn’t bear to give it to him, promise him the forever’s he deserves – but he can’t.

So, instead of all that, instead of just saying the three simplest and most complicated words in human existence, he says: “Okay.”

And Matt takes a shaky breath and nods at him. “I have work to do, so I’ll catch you later.” Chad ends the call before saying bye and kicks the empty moving box next to his chair.

//

They don’t talk as much when Chad moves. Matt stops making time for him, and Chad does the same. Still, they find themselves coming back to each other, because they always do.

Chad watches one of his streams for the first time in months and he looks happy. He throws his head back and claps his hands multiple times and it makes Chad’s stomach flip because he misses him so much.

He ends up calling him after, even though he probably shouldn’t, and he half expects Matt to not pick up, but he does, and all the air leaves his body when he sees his face light up when Chad’s camera registers on Matt’s end.

“Hi, Chad,” he says. The casualness of it all hurts just a bit.

“Hi.” There’s a beat. “I’m sorry…I don’t really have a reason to be calling, I just-“

“You don’t have to have a reason.” Matt says it like he means it. There’s no ifs, ands, or buts - Chad knows he’d always choose him, and he’s never quite sure what to do with that. He’s pushed him away, time after time, and Matt would always choose him, and it makes Chad sick – because he deserves so much more than he can even imagine giving him.

There’s a moment, a single flicker of time, where Chad feels like he can say it. Matt’s looking at him like he personally placed every single fucking star in the sky, and Chad almost spills over a million overdue I love you’s, but it comes out like: “I’m glad we’ve been able to talk some. I’ve missed us.”

He sees the hope in Matt’s face fall, slightly, but Matt says: “I know. I have too. Just, time? Am I right? Fuck.” Both of them know that’s not why, but Chad agrees because he’s not exactly in a position to push.

//

They still fuck at conventions because they don’t really know anything besides sneaking into each other’s rooms at three in the morning in cities they don’t know. It’s become a sad sort of tradition, Chad thinks – he gives Matt a copy of his hotel key, or Matt gives him his, and they fuck and sometimes they talk afterwards but now they mostly don’t. The saddest thing is that he still loves him and he still hasn’t said it. He knows the longer he waits the less Matt is going to care, if he even still does. Chad’s pretty sure he’s dating someone named Luke now, and it’s fine. Really. Because Matt gave him a year to get his shit together and decide if he wants to commit to this, and Chad never gave him an answer. He’s not exactly in a position to say ‘don’t date anyone but also don’t date me’, he thinks. But still, Matt is outside his door minutes after Chad texts ‘come over’ and Chad wonders why he likes him so much.

He’s wearing a black Twitch hoodie with a black Twitch shirt and Chad makes a joke about his branding and Matt rolls his eyes and shrugs out of his jacket. “Hi,” he says, as though they haven’t been in each other’s presence for a full minute or so already.

“Hi,” Chad replies. He leans in and kisses him, feverishly, pushing Matt against the door and Matt’s hands find their way to Chad’s waist. Chad pulls apart and starts taking off his shirt and Matt’s looking at him like he’s a piece of meat and he wonders what happened to them. He stops, halfway through unbuttoning his flannel, and says: “What are we doing?”

Matt makes a face. “We’re having sex. At least, I think so? That’s what we’ve been doing for a while now.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re sexually attracted to each other?” Matt answers sarcastically. The lack of response from Chad makes Matt’s walls fall down in an instant. “Fuck if I know.”

Chad makes his way over to the bed and falls down on it and stares up at the ceiling. He feels Matt make his way over to him and the bed slightly sink as he sits down. They sit like that for a few minutes, listening to the sound of the ceiling fan and the person in the next room over whose television is up too loud.

Chad breaks the silence by asking a question that’s been bothering him for months – “Why do you put up with me?” He looks over at Matt because he knows him well enough to know he won’t answer the question the way he wants to and he needs to see his face.

But, he does. Matt answers the question way too honestly for Chad to bear and he feels sick. “Because I love you,” he says with a shrug. He says it like it’s not the first time he’s ever said it to him and that the words won’t eat Chad alive for the next twenty fucking years of his life.

And it’s not as though Chad hasn’t known. He’s not a dumbass. He feels the way Matt gravitates towards him in spite of everything, the way Matt looks at him like he’s made of magic, the way it feels like universes are collapsing when they look at each other. He knows.

But hearing it is another thing. Hearing it is Matt acknowledging it. Hearing it is knowing Matt knows all the things Chad knows and accepting it and loving it and Chad’s still dealing with the last part and it’s too much.

So instead of saying the words he’s needed to say for months, Chad sits up and kisses him again, and he feels Matt smile into it just like he did the first time and he doesn’t get why. He thinks he probably never will.

//

Somewhere along the line they start talking properly again. They fall back into being best friends again and Chad’s never felt so happy. Because even if things are a disaster, they find their way back to each other. Over and over again. Sometimes when he’s drunk or on little sleep he toys with the idea of them being soulmates, even though he’s pretty sure that’s not really a thing.

He’s in Seattle for ‘business’ again, but really he just wanted to see Matt. He doesn’t bother booking a hotel because he knows he’ll end up crashing in his bed anyway.

They find themselves in a very familiar situation – a light drizzle starts to happen as they walk back to Matt’s car. This time, Chad looks up and lets the rain hit his face and breathes it in. Matt notices and says: “See? I told you. Rain is fucking incredible.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re always right, we get it,” Chad says as he reaches for the passenger door. Matt beats him to it by opening for him, again, just like he did the last time this happened and he wonders if Matt remembers that day as clearly as he does.

The wind starts to pick up around them and Chad notices people getting into their cars or going into shops for shelter. He looks up at Matt who’s looking down at him, probably waiting for him to get into the car door. Instead, Chad winds his arms around his neck and leans in to kiss him. Matt jumps at the touch but closes the distance, pressing their mouths together more softly than Chad thinks they ever have. Matt pushes their hips together and Chad’s backed up against his car and something in the back of his mind is screaming about how they’re in public and someone could walk down the street at any moment calling them a variety of obscenities, but for once it’s not as loud as the part of him that loves Matt more than anything in the fucking world.

They peel away from each other and Matt smiles at him lazily before asking: “What was that for?”

And Chad finally feels brave enough to say something he’s needed to say for too long. “I love you, I guess,” he teases, because it’s the only way he can say it right now. But it seems to be enough, because Matt takes a deep breath before smiling and Chad wonders if he has as bad of physical reactions to him as he does to Matt.

“I love you too…I guess,” he replies and Chad feels like for the first time in he doesn’t know how long, he can finally breathe.


End file.
